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Metzler goes on to say "defamation means an untrue and unprivileged statement that tends to hold a person up to public contempt, ridicule, or hatred, or to injure a person's reputation, or to cause a person to be shunned or avoided, or to injure a person in business or professional pursuits."

Metzler advises us to "suspect libel whenever someone or some agency is accused of any kind of wrongdoing, such as a crime or a moral indiscretion." (That may tell you why nothing makes me more nervous than a cop brief.)

"Some statements are so recklessly extravagant," Metzler says, "that they should ring alarm bells the moment you hear them. For example, it's dangerous to call (or quote someone as calling) a person any of these terms: "Adulterer, murderer, cheat, blackmailer, racist, embezzler, gangster, and a host of similar terms." (Even if you don't use these terms, per se, describing somebody as having done something to qualify for one of these terms should raise some flags.)

Metzler says that for somebody to sue for libel, they need "to establish four elements: defamation, publication, identification, and fault."

We've already discussed what defamation is, so we'll move on to the other three.

"Publication means the defamation has been disseminated to other people," Metzler says. (While this was written years before I could even spell Internet, I take this to mean that libel applies to whatever means we choose to deliver a story to the public. Stories that go on the Web site are just as vulnerable to libel actions as stories that appear in the paper. It also means that if we find a problem with a story in an early edition, we still have an opportunity to mitigate the damage caused by the story, and potentially the court damages, by fixing or removing the story in later editions, thus limiting the spread of the libel.)

"Identification means that the person or group bringing the suit must be specifically identified," Metzler says. But then he adds a few wrinkles. "This does not always mean the defamed party must be named," he says. "To refer to 'a certain butcher on Park Street who sells adulterated meat' is cause for action if only one butcher operates on Park Street. If two butchers operated there, you might even be sued by both because the innocent butcher may have suffered injury as well as your intended target. However, statements like 'all politicians are crooks' are so vague as to preclude libel actions."

"Fault means that the defendant -- the reporter and the paper -- has done something wrong which brought about the libel: what the law calls 'negligence,'" Metzler says. "States vary in the ways they define negligence, but in general it boils down to this question: Did the reporter exercise a reasonable care collecting and writing the information?" (It's different in cases involving public figures, who must prove malice, which means "the reporter or paper knew the information was false or acted with 'reckless disregard' to whether it was true or not," Metzler says.)

There are some set defenses for libel.

"Truth is the best defense against libel," according to "News Reporting and Writing" by Brian S. Brooks, George Kennedy, Daryl R. Moen and Don Ranly, who billed themselves as "the Missouri Group." "But knowing the truth is one thing: proving it is another." (Please, please, please remember that part.)

Metzler suggests that to prove something is true, "you must have documentary proof or a string of witnesses willing to testify in court before you are on safe ground." (Essentially, the lesson taught to me in my reporting days was to get the records. People sometimes change their stories, but for a document to change, you basically have to break one of Newton's laws or the prime directive.)

Fair comment and criticism is another defense, most often associated with reviews or other published criticism.

Just for fun, here's a graph about a performing group called the Cherry Sisters that got a thumbs-up from the Iowa Supreme Court back in 1901:

Effie is an old jade of 50 summers, Jessie a frisky filly of 40, and Addie, the flower of the family, a capering monstrosity of 35. Their long and skinny arms, equipped with talons at the extremities, swung mechanically and anon waved frantically at the suffering audience. The mouths of their rancid features opened like caverns, and sounds like wailings of damned souls issued therefrom. They pranced around the stage with a motion that suggested a cross between the danse du ventre and a fox trot, -- strange creatures with painted faces and hideous mien ...

The Iowa Supreme Court, however, would have probably sneered if the reviewer went on to call Effie an arsonist, Jessie a communist or Addie a streetwalker because that would not have been considered fair comment. It's a judgment call. A politician once got away with, Metzler says, "calling his opponent 'a horse's ass, a jerk, an idiot and paranoid." (That's considered fair comment, as well as one of the things I think that makes this country great.)

Privilege is another defense.

"Privilege," Metzler says, "is based on the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, even 'robust and wide open,' to use the words of one jurist. Therefore the legal concept of absolute privilege protects statements made during the official conduct of the three branches of government: executive, judicial, and legislative. This is true at all levels of government, national, state, and local."

Naturally, this being about the law, there are gray areas.

"The defense of privilege is ... a little shaky at the lower echelons of government, such as an ad hoc subcommittee of the school board or informal statements made by, say, an administrative assistant to the governor or a deputy sheriff (or the police booking sergeant). What it does protect are statements made in formal and official proceedings of Congress, the legislature, the school board, the city council, courts of record, the official statements of the President, the governor, cabinet officers, and the heads of important branches of government. All of these are protected by absolute privilege. (By the way, take note that Metzler is not guided by any of our style rules.)

"Thus, libelous statements are safe to say in the conduct of official government business. And under the protection of qualified privilege, a journalist may report it in a balanced and reasonably accurate account of the proceedings.

"A similar privilege applies to most government records that are open to public inspection."

Naturally, this being about the law, there are exceptions.

"Police incident reports and witness interviews," Metzler says, "are not privileged. Court documents in most states (I don't know about this one, I've only lived here five months.) are not privileged until they are acted on by the court. These include pleadings, complaints, indictments, replies, and other such documents that have merely been filed with the court clerk. Reporters are generally safe to report the fact of filing of the document and the general nature of the content, but they should refrain from quoting the more flagrant allegations until after the court has acted (for example, heard an indictment read the defendant in open court)."

This is probably a good place to stop. Otherwise, I'll have to tell you the complete history of New York Times vs. Sullivan, which isn't going to be pretty. If you have a desire to add this, send me a note and we'll keep the conversation going. Either that, or seek professional help.